


October Light

by luninosity



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) RPF
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, First Kiss, Happy Ending, Headaches & Migraines, Hurt/Comfort, Love, Love Confessions, M/M, Pining, Requited Love, Tea
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-12
Updated: 2012-10-12
Packaged: 2017-11-16 03:42:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/535091
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luninosity/pseuds/luninosity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for a request about “h/c involving that angle that autumn sun manages to get under sunglasses and give you the headache from hell.” Michael has the world's worst headache, and James tries to help.</p>
            </blockquote>





	October Light

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Eve 6’s “Enemy,” which is not really thematically appropriate but does contain the lyrics _october light/ shone bright through the windshield/ right into my eyes_ and also _just tell me nothing’s wrong/ then get undressed and spend the night_

Michael was having a bad day.  
   
It shouldn’t’ve been. It should have been an easy day, in fact. They were only filming little pick-up shots, lots of tiny snippets of himself and James walking around, getting in and out of cars, or just standing in front of scenery looking longingly at each other.  
   
The longing looks were, of course, part of the problem.  
   
Every time he stared over at James, and watched those impossible eyes go soft and warm and trusting, wide and burning blue as the autumn sky above them, he had to remind himself that none of that was real. That James was a damn good actor, and that just because Charles happened to be hopelessly in love with Erik, that didn’t mean that James felt anything remotely similar towards the person _playing_ Erik.  
   
Even if the person playing Erik desperately wanted him to.  
   
He wasn’t even sure when that had happened. They’d become friends almost instantly, of course—James was friends with everyone, including anyone he’d just met and also their pets—but somewhere in the course of long on-set hours and late-night martini-drinking sessions and laughing golf-cart thefts and endless interviews, he’d looked at James, and found himself thinking about how much he’d like everything to stay this way, always, unruly hair and ocean-bright eyes right there at his side. He could do anything, with James at his side.  
   
And they’d be done filming all too soon. He couldn’t even imagine that. He’d tried, the night before, to picture going on to the next project, on his own, and he’d discovered that, yes, he could picture that, but only if James was willing to call and talk to him at some point every single day, because no day would be complete without the presence of a Scottish accent somewhere in his life.  
   
James, of course, had smiled cheerfully at him in the morning, and said, “You look tired, did you sleep all right? Do you want my coffee?” and Michael had wanted to kiss him, because whenever James said anything, these days, Michael wanted to kiss him.  
   
And those adoring eyes kept looking at him, but that was all Charles, not James at all, and Michael kept looking back and hoping that James wouldn’t notice the lack of acting on his part, and the collision of all the illusions and realities was making his head pound.  
   
He’d said, “You’re drinking something with coconut syrup in it, aren’t you, that’s disgusting,” and James had laughed and said “Yes, but do you want some?” and he’d said yes because then he could drink out of James’s coffee cup and taste the lingering imprint of those lips, almost like a kiss.  
   
Now, though, his mouth tasted like coconut. Which he thoroughly despised. He wanted to think that it hadn’t been worth it, except that it had.  
   
And the sun beat down overhead with merciless golden serenity, and with each thump of the doors as they got in and out of the car while trying not to touch scalding metal edges, with each shot, with each step on the super-heated pavement, his head hurt a little more.  
   
At least he got to wear sunglasses against the glare. James had started having to squint, as the late-afternoon rays slipped lower and skewered him in the face.  
   
At which point, because the universe wanted to demonstrate its grudge against him, a vicious stab of sunlight bounced down under the edge of his sunglasses and punctured both eyeballs, happily. He shut his eyes against it. Too late. Little dazzling sparks spun at the back of his vision anyway.  
   
When he pushed up the sunglasses to rub his eyes, the pain settled into a lazy throb at the back of his skull, as if to mock his efforts at alleviation. That, combined with all the earlier tension, turned his entire brain into what felt like one giant bruise, purple and black and endlessly aching.  
   
James eyed him with concern. “Are you all right?”  
   
“I’m…yes. Sorry. Are we doing one more?”  
   
“You don’t look all right. You look sort of…pale. And ghastly.”  
   
“Ghastly? Are you channeling some sort of nineteenth-century melodrama?”  
   
James clearly chose to ignore this questioning of his vocabulary. “Well, you do.”  
   
“It’s just a headache.”  
   
“Oh, yes. In the same way that Erik and Charles are just friends. Anything I can do?”  
   
“Probably not.” At least they were almost done for the day. And then he could go fall down somewhere in a darkened corner and not get up until morning, or possibly not at all if his head actually exploded. Might be difficult to continue filming if he had no head.  
   
“Still ghastly.”  
   
“You need a new adjective.”  
   
“You need to be done for the day, I think. One more, all right?”  
   
“Fine.”  
   
After the last take, James actually put an arm around him and walked him over to the car, which Michael wanted to both grumpily protest—he really didn’t need help, did he?—and gratefully accept, because the feeling of James beside him, offering support, was exactly everything he wanted, at that moment, and every other moment, too.  
   
“I’ll see you in an hour or so, okay?”  
   
“Wait, you’re not coming?” Oh, that was just desperate. But it was the routine, wasn’t it? James always ended up in his room, after the day’s filming had wrapped, sometimes to talk, sometimes for the deadly martini-drinking contests, sometimes just to sit next to each other and watch tv and forget about the outside world for a while.  
   
Of course, he probably wasn’t going to be very good company tonight. Maybe he should reconsider the standing invitation; he mostly just wanted to curl up in bed and hope that the head-exploding joke wouldn’t become real.  
   
James chewed on his lip for a second. Michael watched, mesmerized, and hoped that James wouldn’t notice the focused direction of his gaze, behind the sunglasses. “I want to. I can’t—I’m supposed to do a couple more shots, I think. I’ll make it as quick as I can, okay?”  
   
Michael nodded, which was a mistake, and James hesitated as if he wanted to say something else, but their driver was looking in the mirror impatiently, and so James waved him off without venturing whatever that comment might have been.  
   
Back in the hotel, he managed to smile as the driver pulled away, and then to get himself into the elevator and down the hall—cursing the cruelty of the unnoticing artificial lights with as much energy as he had left—and find his room key without dropping it more than once, and then, finally, he could give in to the demonic headache.  
   
He’d turned off all the lights, and closed the curtains, and let himself collapse onto the welcoming bed, before he’d realized that he did in fact have aspirin over by the sink, but that would require that he move again, and movement wasn’t really an option. So he just lay there in the same spot and hoped the coolness of the pillowcase would be enough to fight off the parade of drummers currently having a party behind his eyes. It wasn’t.  
   
He kept his eyes shut, because when he opened them everything felt sharp-edged and painful, but it was still early—hell, it wasn’t even completely dark yet—and he couldn’t actually make himself fall asleep, even though he knew it would help. Besides, the drumbeats in his skull were distracting.  
   
After an indeterminate amount of empty sleepless time, he heard a light, tentative tap at the door, which would of course be James, because he hadn’t gotten around to telling James not to come over, because even though he was in no fit state for company he still, pathetically, _wanted_ James to come over.  
   
Maybe James wouldn’t mind spending time with an inanimate, inarticulate lump on the bed. That was probably about all he was up to, at the moment.  
   
He tossed a pitiful “Come in” in the direction of the door, probably not loud enough for James to actually hear him, but the doorknob turned anyway, and James appeared and shut the door gently behind him, and then walked over to the bed as if he thought overly noisy footsteps might be asking too much.  
   
“Hey. Are you all right?”  
   
“Depends. Does ‘all right’ mean ‘world’s worst hangover,’ right now?”  
   
He heard James let out a little breath of not-quite-amusement at that, and then the bed dipped as James sat down beside him. “I brought you aspirin. And tea.”  
   
Michael pushed himself up on his elbows, sighed, “I think I love you,” and accepted both, gratefully. Because he was looking ecstatically at the aspirin, he almost—but not entirely—missed James’s startled little flinch, in response, and then wondered whether he’d imagined the movement, in some sort of pain-induced blurry moment.  
   
He tried, unobtrusively, to peek into blue eyes as he swallowed oh-so-beautiful painkillers. Did James look wistful, at all? Or was that just the projection of his own thoughts? But if not, if it was real, what had prompted it?  
   
Maybe he’d said something wrong. Maybe James was actually disturbed by the suggestion, flippant though it had been. But the surprised expression had vanished now, so fast that he was starting to doubt his own perceptions, and there was nothing evident in those summer-ocean eyes except unadulterated concern.  
   
“Anything else you need? Or do you want me to leave? You should try to rest.”  
   
“I was. I can’t sleep. And you can stay if you want, but you probably shouldn’t expect sparkling conversation and witty repartee.”  
   
“From you? I never do.”  
   
“Funny, James.”  
   
“I thought so. Aspirin helping yet?”  
   
“It’s been all of a minute, you know.” Even though all the words bounced wildly around his head, practically solid when they collided with his ears, he somehow felt a little better, just because James was here, sitting next to him, radiating normality and warmth and worry and wearing what seemed to be one of Charles’s giant sweaters.  
   
“Did you steal that from set?”  
   
“It’s comfortable, and I like it. And I know you’ve borrowed at least one of Erik’s turtlenecks. Very stylish.”  
   
“That was an accident.” It honestly had been. It had been a long day, and he’d been tired, and he’d meant to pick up his actual shirt, which had also been black and he hadn’t noticed until after he’d made it to the car. He’d never been a turtleneck person. Unless James was suggesting that he ought to be, in which case he’d try.  
   
“I believe you. I don’t think you’d voluntarily wear turtlenecks in public. Besides, you have morals. Which I respect. I, on the other hand, have three pairs of Charles’s gloves.”  
   
Michael almost laughed, at that, and then stopped, because it made his head hurt, and also because the image of James in Charles’s gloves—in _only_ Charles’s gloves—had tiptoed in around all the pounding and distracted him.  
   
“Any better?”  
   
“Maybe.” Mostly just because James had wanted to stay. He really was pathetic.  
   
“Hmm. I’ve never been able to sleep, with a headache, either. But you probably should try; it’ll help.”  
   
“Can’t.”  
   
“Well, then…” James looked at him thoughtfully for a minute, eyes the color of midnight in the dimness of the room, and then kicked off both shoes, stretched out next to him on the bed, and then reached out and pulled Michael over against him, fitting them together like spoons.  
   
James wasn’t really tall enough to be the big spoon, at least not between the two of them. But he was trying hard to be anyway, one arm wrapped around Michael and legs stretched out as long as possible, so that his sock-covered toes brushed against Michael’s ankles, and his breath sent warm-air whispers across the back of Michael’s neck. Michael, suddenly, found himself very glad that they hadn’t ended up facing each other; he could only barely keep himself from turning around to kiss James breathless as it was.  
   
For the first time, he thought he might be grateful for the thunderous headache; at least he probably wasn’t going to embarrass himself in other ways, at the moment, at the feeling of James in his bed, pressed up against him, soft hair curling up into his ear.  
   
The hair tickled, actually, but he didn’t want to move. Ever.  
   
The fading light dwindled around them, sunset and dusk giving way to evening, and he could hear James breathing, quietly, regularly, and maybe the aspirin had started to work, or maybe it was just the lazy stillness of the hotel room, opening up around them, but the peacefulness drifted into his bones, under his skin, inside his thoughts, and the world felt calmer, settling into place.  
   
The hair brushed across his cheek again, inviting him to ask a particular question before he did in fact fall asleep. “James?”  
   
“Sorry, are you not comfortable? I can move.”  
   
“Very comfortable. Don’t move. Why do you smell like apples?”  
   
“Um…I washed my hair this morning?”  
   
“You washed your hair in apples?”  
   
“I washed my hair in shampoo, you lunatic. It just happens to smell like apples. Shouldn’t you be trying to sleep?”  
   
“I am.” He breathed in one more time. There was something reassuring about the scent of apples, he decided. Something cozily familiar. He could fall asleep, maybe, with that scent wandering past.  
   
James tightened the arm around him, and murmured, “Go to sleep,” and Michael wrapped his own hand around James’s wrist, to make sure that warmth stayed in place, and felt James smile, against his neck.  
   
“Not going anywhere.”  
   
“Thank you.”  
   
“Really go to sleep.”  
   
“I am…”  
   
“Good,” James murmured, sounding pleased, and that was the last thing Michael remembered hearing before falling contentedly into blackness, the scent of apples following him down.  
   
He woke up surprised—there was still an arm around him, and for a brief second he panicked, wondering if he’d somehow ended up in someone else’s bed via headache-induced delirium—but then all the memories came sidling back, friendly as the weight of James against his back.  
   
James had stayed, even after Michael had fallen asleep. Stayed here, in his bed, and was currently not-quite-snoring behind his right ear. One sock-clad foot had found its way between Michael’s legs, and they were both still dressed, and the air, in the room, had gotten colder with the approach of night, and Michael breathed in and out and thought the word _love_ and knew he meant it.  
   
He’d always thought that love would be some grand revelation, trumpets and fireworks and dramatic music. But it wasn’t. It was simple.  
   
It was tea and painkillers and apple-scented shampoo. It was the warm weight of the arm around him, solid and present and reassuring. The way he wanted to talk to James every day, to watch that smile curl up into eyes like sunlight, to see James laugh or grin because of something Michael had said, and then flip teasing words right back at him, easy and effortless and perfect.  
   
Of course he was in love with James.  
   
And James had come over, out of concern, because they were friends and friends were concerned about each other, and had gotten into his bed because that seemed to help, not out of any secret desire to make Michael think about the two of them sharing a bed. Obviously.  
   
He wondered how long he’d been asleep. It didn’t feel that long—maybe only a couple of hours—but long enough for the sun to go away completely, and leave the room in a sort of floating greyness, just the two of them isolated there. The headache had mostly vanished, too. Not entirely, but almost.  
   
When he tried to move just enough to see the clock, he felt James shift positions slightly, and the rhythm of sleep-softened breathing changed. Damn.  
   
 He heard James yawn, and then give a sort of all-over shake, as if trying to wake himself up. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to fall asleep on you.”  
   
“I don’t mind.” He didn’t. He wanted James to know that he meant that, so he rolled over onto his back and, when James tried to sit up, put an arm around him and tugged him back down, where he could look into blue eyes despite the lack of light. James resisted for a split second, and then gave in and settled back down in Michael’s encircling arms.  
   
“I do mind, though. I was trying to make sure you were all right, not have a nap. Are you?”  
   
“Better, I think.” He saw the sky-sapphire eyes light up, at that, sunlight streaking in out of nowhere at all.  
   
“Good.”  
   
“Very much better, actually.”  
   
“Very much good, then.” James put his chin on Michael’s chest, nestled in one hand so that it wouldn’t hurt, and studied him from centimeters away, intimate and unembarrassed about it. “Is there anything else you need? You know I’ll happily offer, if there’s something that would help.”  
   
Michael stared back, and thought about James offering to help him, about James sleeping in his bed, gazing at him so closely, not protesting the tightness of Michael’s arms around him. “You know…there might be one more thing, yes.”  
   
“Anything.”  
   
“Anything?”  
   
“Yes. Of course.”  
   
He reached out, carefully. Ran a finger across James’s cheek, connecting tiny gilded freckles that didn’t run away from his touch. James, wide-eyed, didn’t pull away. Just licked his lips, leaving a trace of shine in the darkened room.  
   
“Can I kiss you?”  
   
“Yes—”  
   
“Oh thank god.” Those glorious lips tasted like warmth and want and a tiny trace of faded chapstick and the word _yes_ , still hovering there because he hadn’t quite let James finish the answer. He wanted to taste that _yes_ forever.  
   
And James was kissing him back, too, sapphire-sparkle eyes all enormous and brilliant with delight, and the lips parted a little more for Michael’s curious tongue, and when he explored a bit more deeply he felt James shiver and lean in against him, as if asking for more.  
   
He could do that, he thought, and slid one hand up beneath the bulky sweater, tracing fingertips across exposed pale skin, finding new freckles to examine.  
   
And then James’s stomach grumbled. And then grumbled again.  
   
“Really?” He started laughing, at the second one, because he couldn’t help it.  
   
“Sorry! I didn’t exactly stop for food before I came over here.” James was blushing now, the pinkness threatening to obscure the lighter freckles, but laughing a little, too.  
   
“You didn’t eat?”  
   
“I was worried about you!”  
   
“You—” Michael sat up, ignoring James’s sound of protest, and started looking around for room service information. He still wasn’t sure that his own stomach felt quite up to food, post-headache, but he wasn’t about to let James go hungry on his behalf.  
   
The hotel information packet, he realized, was sitting on the table across the room and laughing at him, because he’d have to let go of James and get up to reach it. Choices, choices.  
   
He looked back at James, all curling hair and horizonless eyes bright against the white cotton pillows, looking absolutely content to be there. James in his bed. Smiling at him. Amazing.  
   
He kissed the happy smile one more time, and then, reluctantly, slid out of the bed. James raised an eyebrow, quizzically, watching.  
   
“Where’re you going?”  
   
“Ordering you food.”  
   
“I thought you wanted to have sex!”  
   
At which Michael almost dropped the flimsy hotel menu, because that sentence, in that voice, practically _was_ sex, already. “I do!”  
   
“Then I’m confused.”  
   
“I do want to have sex with you. I want you. But I also want to feed you.”  
   
“Okay, still confused. And now maybe a little concerned about your sexual preferences.”  
   
“You brought me tea and aspirin and I love you.” In his head that had been more eloquent, but James was sitting up, now, too, and looking at him, but the change in angle and the lack of lighting had left those expressive eyes in shadow and he felt off-balance, unable to read them.  
   
“You…fall in love with people who bring you tea?”  
   
“No. Or yes. Or just one person. Just you.”  
   
James stared at him, eyes all unknowable indigo across the distance of gloomy hotel room that had suddenly imposed itself between them.  
   
“You love me?”  
   
“I thought I just said so!”  
   
“Since when do you love me?”  
   
“Since always, I think. I don’t know. Does it matter?” He tried not to hold his breath. The whole moment, suspended in the dimness of the room, had taken on a silent, otherworldly quality, as if listening to their words.  
   
James blinked at him a few times, and then said, “Well, _yes_ , you know I love you, you could’ve told me! I’ve been thinking you didn’t—”  
   
“You what?”  
   
“I love you. I brought you tea and aspirin and I love you. Does that help?”  
   
“You what?” Michael said again, and sat back down on the bed next to him. The bed, helpfully, offered sturdy support. Good for it; his legs currently seemed to be inadequate to the task.  
   
“I always thought you knew!”  
   
“Why would you think—”  
   
“Oh, come on, everyone knows, they’ve been placing bets based on the way I look at you!”  
   
“I always thought—you just—that was acting!”  
   
“No one’s that good an actor!”  
   
“You are!”  
   
“You really didn’t notice?” James, still wide-eyed with disbelief, added, “And also thank you!” and Michael stared at him, and then, after a second, they both burst out laughing. Michael managed to say, through the laughter, “You’re welcome,” and James put both arms around him, as the bed trembled gleefully with all the amusement.  
   
“Can I feed you now?”  
   
“Can we have sex afterwards?”  
   
“Yes.”  
   
“Then yes. Also, I love you.”  
   
“I love you too. Did you say people were placing bets? On us?”  
   
“Afraid so. I think Kevin might stand to make quite a bit of money, actually.” James was still grinning.  “From what I’ve heard, most people are starting to think you really aren’t interested.”  
   
“Most people included you, didn’t it?” He knew it did. He’d seen the astonishment in those eyes. He wanted to kick himself, once for every time he might’ve unknowingly made James doubt his own desirability.  
   
“Well…yes. Sorry.”  
   
“For what?”  
   
“I…don’t know, actually. For not telling you first?” James blinked again, eyelashes sweeping like clouds across the ocean, and Michael held him even more tightly and said, “You don’t have to be sorry about that, I’m sorry I didn’t notice, I was trying to be professional and I just kept thinking about how much I wanted to kiss you and I couldn’t and I’m an idiot. I love you. Can I kiss you now?”  
   
“Of course.”  
   
Several very enjoyable minutes later, James paused to say, “Michael?”  
   
“Hmm? Come back here. I’m not done convincing you that I love you.”  
   
“I think I’m thoroughly convinced, but don’t stop because of that. How’s the headache, though?”  
   
“What headache?”  
   
“Seriously, you are all right, now?”  
   
“I’m fine. Would you like me to prove it to you?”  
   
“Mmm…yes.”  
   
“Unless you’d like me to call room service. If you’re still hungry.”  
   
“Later,” James said, decisively, and then pulled Michael down on top of him, and the once-neatly-made bed sacrificed all its tidiness in a very good cause.  
   
Eventually, room service happened. Michael answered the door wearing one of the sheets, and ended up feeding James, who was wearing even less, in bed, and then deciding that he was hungry after all if it meant he could eat ice cream off every single golden freckle on that stomach, at least until James started laughing and pushed him over into the pillows and came up with creative revenge involving chocolate syrup.  
   
The next day, after they’d showered, and then James had walked around in a towel and caused them to shower again, they’d finally turned up on set, only slightly late, and when James turned that completely-besotted-and-hopelessly-in-love gaze on him, under the watchful eyes of the cameras, Michael offered it right back, and grinned.  
   
And in the background, Kevin observed, to Matthew, “You can pay me tomorrow.”


End file.
